Electronic devices include traditional computing devices such as desktop computers, notebook computers, smartphones, wearable devices like a smartwatch, internet servers, and so forth. However, electronic devices also include other types of computing devices such as personal voice assistants, thermostats, automotive electronics, robotics, devices embedded in other machines like refrigerators and industrial tools, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and so forth. These various electronic devices provide services relating to productivity, remote communication, social interaction, security, safety, entertainment, transportation, and information dissemination. Thus, electronic devices play crucial roles in many aspects of modern society.
Many of the services provided by electronic devices in today's interconnected world depend at least partly on electronic communications. Electronic communications include, for example, those exchanged between or among different electronic devices using wireless or wired signals that are transmitted over one or more networks, such as the Internet or a cellular network. Electronic communications therefore include both wireless and wired transmissions and receptions. To make such electronic communications, an electronic device uses a transceiver, such as a wireless transceiver.
Electronic communications can therefore be realized by propagating signals between two wireless transceivers at two different electronic devices. For example, using a wireless transmitter, a smart phone can transmit a wireless signal to a base station over an air medium as part of an uplink communication to support mobile services. Using a wireless receiver, the smart phone can receive a wireless signal from the base station via the air medium as part of a downlink communication to enable mobile services. With a smart phone, mobile services can include phone and video calls, social media interactions, messaging, watching movies, sharing videos, performing searches, acquiring map information or navigational instructions, locating friends, transferring money, obtaining another service like a car ride, and so forth.
To provide these types of services, electronic devices typically use a wireless transceiver to communicate wireless signals in accordance with some wireless standard. Examples of wireless standards include an IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard and a Fourth Generation (4G) cellular standard, both of which we use today with smartphones and other connected devices. However, efforts to enable a Fifth Generation (5G) wireless standard are ongoing. Next-generation 5G wireless networks are expected to offer significantly higher bandwidths, lower latencies, and access to additional electromagnetic spectrum. Taken together, this means that exciting new wireless services can be provided to users, such as driverless vehicles, augmented reality (AR) and other mixed reality (MR) imaging, on-the-go 4K video streaming, ubiquitous sensors to keep people safe and to use natural resources more efficiently, real-time language translations, and so forth.
To make these new 5G technologies more widely available, many wireless devices in addition to smart phones will be deployed, which is sometimes called the “Internet of Things” (IoT). Compared to today's use of wireless devices, tens of billions, and eventually trillions, of more devices are expected to be connected to the internet with the arrival of the Internet of Things. These IoT devices may include small, inexpensive, and low-powered devices, like sensors and tracking tags. Further, to enable next-generation wireless technologies, 5G wireless devices will be communicating with signals that use wider frequency ranges and that span bands located at higher frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum as compared to those of previous wireless standards. As described above, many of these wireless devices—including smart phones and IoT devices—will be expected to be small, to be inexpensive, to consume less power, or some combination thereof.
Thus, the components that enable wireless communications under these constraints will likewise be expected to be tiny, low cost, and capable of functioning with less energy use. One component that facilitates electronic communication is the wireless interface, which can include a wireless transceiver and a radio-frequency front-end (RFFE). Unfortunately, the wireless interfaces designed for devices that operate in accordance with the 4G cellular standard of today are not adequate for the 5G-capable devices of tomorrow, which devices will confront higher frequencies, more-stringent technical demands, and tighter fiscal constraints.
Consequently, to facilitate the adoption of 5G technologies and the widespread deployment of wireless devices that can provide new capabilities and services, existing wireless interfaces will be replaced with those having superior designs that occupy less space or consume less power while still handling the higher frequencies of 5G networks. Electrical engineers and other designers of electronic devices are therefore striving to develop new wireless interfaces that will enable the promise of 5G technologies to become a reality.